Found these funky paintbrushes at Riot Art the other day and K finally had the chance to have a go at using them yesterday. She made all sorts of swirls and patterns in the paint and got quite mucky in the process. She enjoyed herself a lot even though the photo above makes her look like she’s going to cry!

She told me those were cupcakes and by the time they dried they actually did look like cupcakes.

I was thinking about our girls the other day and about the bigger picture. Eventually they will grow up and become adults and face really tough situations. Eventually they will have to make hard decisions, decide how to react to things and choose a direction. It seems so far off right now but thats ok because it means we have the next ‘however many’ years to prepare them for what life will throw at them.

Sounds very depressing to think about the harder things they will face but its true (and I’m a realist as opposed to being a pessimist). If we (hubby and I) don’t take our part of their future seriously, as well as preparing them for the more practical things then I feel that I would be being neglectful in my parenting (just me and my thoughts about myself, not about others).

For example, its fine to teach them to cook, how to budget, how to save, how to drive a car etc… but what about how to react when they are struggling? What about how to treat other people in circumstances where they are blindsided? What about how to rely on God, I mean REALLY rely on God.

That last one is one of the most important things that I want to teach them. Its something my parents taught me and I want to pass it on. As I said in a guest post over at Narelle’s blog last month:

“I grew up in a household where trusting God for every day things was the norm. My parents worked for a Christian newspaper in which ‘wages’ were given if available through supporting donors. It was a great way to grow up, every time we needed something my parents first port of call was prayer. We prayed for food, we prayed for money, we prayed about situations that were challenging and so I learnt to pray myself, and to trust God.”

Now our situation isn’t the same as it was for my parents…..yet. This doesn’t mean that we can’t teach them this lesson too. I want it to become so ‘normal’ to them to go to God first and so deeply embedded that it becomes a life skill.

Being a parent is very hard work. Its full of responsibility, worry, joy, sadness, battles, tiredness and fun. I hope I can look back in many years to come and not have regret about how I parented my girls (but the realist in me knows that I, like most of us will probably have regrets). The best thing I can do for them as I go along is to pray for them.

I really enjoy making canes. If you want to know what a cane is, pop over to my other blog where I wrote a post explaining them. Knowing how amazing some caners are I know that I’m not brilliant at it but I do get a buzz out of slicing off the end and seeing what I’ve got. I also like to make random canes using up scrap clay.

Yesterday I lined them all up to see what I’ve got and here’s the photos:

Yes, this was from yesterday but I just love this photo. Last year she was not a fan of the beach and here she is just running along it like its nothing at all. I think we are going to have to start compiling a list of things to buy for future beach going. The area we lived in before moving here was much more of a hiking, bush-walking, country life sort of place but here the beach is much closer. I always worry about my girls’ fair skin so suncream is a must. I hate applying sun cream. Of course I do it because I hate sunburn more but its one of the things I dislike about summer so much. I can see a couple of long sleeved rashies coming to live at our house.

This morning the three of us (K was in Kindy) went off to Cottesloe Beach to look at the Sculpture By the Sea exhibition. This is its 6th year here in Perth and this was our first visit. I’ve always meant to go but never seemed to find out about it until after it had finished. Hubby spotted it in the paper yesterday so this time we didn’t miss out.

What an amazing range of artwork! From the whimsical and funny to the more traditional, reflective work. The variety of mediums used was interesting too. Perspex, recycled materials, iron, timber and even grape vines.

Little L loved the sculptures but she loved the water more. She had a much better response to our visit to the beach when we were in Sydney. The first thing she said when we arrived was ‘water!’ and the last thing she said was ‘bye bye water’. Very sweet.

So, here are some of my favourite works but you can see all the photos over on my flickr if you want to.

The artist was stating that this is what our trees would look like in the future (I hope not).

This had beautiful lines and contrasted really well with the horizon line behind it.

An iron rusted horse. Really amazing work.

Fabulous work, beautiful!

The contrast of the yellow against the ocean colours along with the movement of the lines was perfect.

The artist mentioned that each ring represents an action made by a person and how it ripples out to effect the next person.

The sculptures like this that you could see through were the most successful I thought.

These bottle tops have been used to make what the artist called a slug but I saw an ocean floor with coral and sea weed. You have to go to the flickr pics to see how huge this was. Would have taken hours.

And of course the photo I have as my photo of the day showed another favourite using brickies straps. Amazing what people can do and the colour was perfect for the environment.

I would recommend going down to see the exhibition. It’s free although you can purchase guide books for $10 and kids guide books for $6.

Today we went to see the 6th Annual Sculpture By the Sea at Cottesloe Beach. I’m going to do a separate post about some of my favourites but this is my shot of the day. I loved seeing little L interacting with the artwork. She had so much fun! Miss K was elsewhere so this time she didn’t get to see the artwork.

Ahhh, trust and patience, two things that often elude me. I have been a Christian since I was a little girl, I grew up in a family where trusting God was as normal as breathing and yet its a lesson I have to learn over and over. Quite a few of my friends and family have been going through very difficult situations lately. Many are due to illness and the rest due to life situations that emerge. I have found myself praying more than ever before. Not the ’sit down with a paper and pad and go through a list’ type of praying (which should work for me considering my affinity with ‘to do’ lists and my love of stationery) but more the ’shoot a prayer to heaven’ or ‘pray as I do a mundane job’ sort of thing. Some of the things I’ve been praying about have been answered in the way I hoped they would be but most are just drifting there, waiting.

A couple of weeks ago while compiling my first Weekly What List I decided on the spur of the moment to put ‘memorise a verse’ on that list. I haven’t really memorised a verse since I was at Bible college, around 17 years ago (unless you count Colin Buchanan songs). That’s pretty shameful I think for someone who says they live by the Bible.

I decided to look for a verse surrounding the theme of trust. I had memorised Proverbs 3: 5-6 when I was a kid so that wasn’t an option. Instead I chose a verse that I probably skimmed at some point. Its full of words that we all see as Christian cliche’s such as ‘hope’, ‘trust’, ‘joy’ and ‘peace’ which is why I would have skimmed it.

I have to admit, I didn’t remember that I was meant to be memorising this until around half way through the week. I started to memorise bits and eventually it all stuck. Then I decided I’d better actually figure out what it means, what’s the point otherwise? Here’s the verse:

Romans 15:13
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace
as you trust in him,
so that you may overflow with hope
by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The verse I’m meant to memorise this week is this one, chosen because my jar of patience seems to have evaporated (must have left the lid off). Better get memorising hey!

Ecclesiastes 7:8
The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride.

*Photo heavy post

This is part three of our doll’s house renovations. Having not quite finished the floors due to a lack of a piece of stiff cardboard (to put under the carpet like fabric for strength) we have moved on to the walls. K was in the right mood to continue working on the doll’s house today so we set to work. The other day I went to Riot Art and they had all their large scrap-booking papers marked down to 69c each. We selected a few, K particularly liked the butterflies and teapots and took them home.

The first thing to do was to make a template making sure we had the window in place. This was a good opportunity to explain to Miss K what a template was. She understood for the most part but I wouldn’t say completely (she’s only 4 after all). After trimming a piece of computer paper to the right size of the wall I did a rubbing of the window area so we could get an exact fit.

I’m a bit of a short-cutter in some things so I would suggest sticking the template to the wall using blu tak so it doesn’t move.

I then proceeded to cut out the window of the template using a metal ruler and knife and then cut out the scrap-booking paper using the template.

While I was at Riot Art I talked to the sales assistant to see if there was an alternative to Modge Podge. the small bottle was around $13 and the large pot around $20, a bit expensive for me at the moment. She suggested using binder medium for both sticking and sealing the paper to wood, decoupage style. The bottle of binder medium was around $12 and much larger than the modge podge one, so a cheaper option. Atelier is a good brand from memory so I figured it was a good choice.

K then went ahead and painted on the binder medium, she did a pretty good job too. Check out the concentration on her face.

and then, after helping her to stick on the cut out paper sheet she sealed it with the same medium.

At this point I had to stop to make another template for the next wall so after talking her out of putting the very busy butterfly paper next to the fake slate floor (she decided to go with the upstairs which will be carpeted, trying to teach a tiny bit of design here) I got on with it and she got distracted. It was a good distraction though, she went and sat in front of her sister and drew her pictures which was sweet. I proceeded to stick on the butterfly paper.

And then we did the bathroom with the blue striped paper (she came back to help with that one).

After sealing all of our ‘wallpaper’ she decided she’d had enough (and so had Miss L who wanted to join in) so we stopped there for this week. We still have several rooms to wallpaper and I think she’s enjoying watching the house change.

Can you tell what this is? Its my 1950’s clay collection building up. I keep the finished canes in the freezer, especially considering the temperatures we’ve had here lately. So far I’ve done a dress, roller-skate, TV, caravan and last night I made a good start on a record player. In fact I made the cane a bit too big and now I have both a single record and a record player. I’m thinking I may stop at this. I’m not sure whether a set of 5 magnets or 6 would be better. Sometimes odd numbers sit better. The one I’m the least happy with is the roller-skate. It seems to resemble a pointy boot on wheels but I might just pretend its stylized and go with it anyway.

What do you think, do one more so there are six in the set?

Oh no, a scary toddler is on the loose! She bites and then giggles and then kisses where she bit you better! Watch out!

Actually, she’s really very very sweet: